Changes in Leadership…

At work we have a tracking system for people to note behavioural skills that they have mastered. One of the lesser noticed ones is Change in Leadership. Although the system is not fool proof, I think it does help people learn what skills they will need to successfully advance in their career. I have heard a few people looking at the list and understand competencies like Effective Interactive Communication, or Teamwork and Cooperation, but they get to Change in Leadership and you can tell they either don’t get it, or don’t get how big this one can really be.


In my life in the church I have seen several changes in leadership. Sometimes it has been due to a bad situation. Sometimes a good situation. Maybe someone had to lead something else. Maybe they had to go across the country. It’s tough. In the best circumstances there is a time like in a relay race where one person runs, then both people run together, the baton is handed off, and the second person runs. From my experience though, most times it is just that one stops and the other runs in their own direction. Sometimes the hand off is not a long enough period. Sometimes the second person has to pick up the baton from the ground.


I think a big problem with the change in leadership, for those that are already in a job, and are the ones being lead, is that often they are pouring their hearts into it. The new leader can come in and change the way things are done… Sometimes with good reason…. Sometimes just because… In Hebrews 13:17, it says, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” As things change over, it is best to just try to do what they need, and to talk with them about how they would make changes. In the end, arguing and bickering is not productive, and that just makes things hard for the new leader. They are watching over your soul, and that carries a great weight with it. Help them to do the best job that they can.


I’ve been through so many of these changes in my life that you would think that it would be easier, but it takes effort to make the change in my heart and in my mind every time. Here are a few things that I have learned:


With each leadership change there is a period of time where the leader has to earn the respect of their team. Respect seems earned, and not just handed over like a Metro news paper at Greenboro station. If you are the new leader, spend the time with your team getting to know them, getting to know how they do what they do. Find out where their passions lie, and what makes their eyes sparkle and their mouth water. If you are the one that has had a leader change, do your best to make the transition as easy as possible.


As a leader, I find that I found that I had to sit back and learn about all of what made my team successful prior to my being there. There are always things that work well and there are always things that could be better, and there are things that just don’t work. It takes some time to figure that out. The last thing I wanted to do was try to swoop in like Superman and save the day when the day was going pretty good already. Can you imagine how uneventful the Action Comics would have been if Superman did that? But it didn’t work that way, he really came in and helped people when they earth needed it. The police were still there to do their job too.


In Exodus 18:13-26, Jethro, Moses’ father in law comes to visit Moses, and he observes something that he thinks he can help Moses to solve. “The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, "What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?"


Moses answered him, "Because the people come to me to seek God's will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws."


Moses' father-in-law replied, "What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied."


Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves.”


There are a few keys here. Moses couldn’t do everything himself. He needed to teach people, and know that those that he was working with were of good character, and let them handle the everyday stuff, and then he could deal with the tough stuff. If you are new to a position, it is even greater when you have people that know their job already, so they can do what they have been doing. Once you know things better, then you can lead them towards the goal.


I remember in one of my jobs, a new manager came in with limited experience at the level she was now working at. A decision had to be made and she really made the wrong one. She consulted her team leaders. They all told her it was the wrong way to go based on their experience, but she told them to do it anyway. Let’s just say that a lot of work had to be done to catch up on work that was abandoned. People with experience have a lot to say.


I watched every episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. Captain Picard often asked his senior staff for options and Guidance. When he had gathered the information, he made a decision and they followed what he said. He had earned their respect. In this one two-part episode, Captain Picard was on a mission and another captain was put in command of the Enterprise. It was tough to watch the crew as they adjusted to the new captain’s style of leadership. I found myself saying, “But Captain Picard wouldn’t have done it that way, “ I was right. But Picard wasn’t the leader at that point either.


As Christians, I think we have it even tougher. Most of the time our work in church is with volunteers. People from all walks of life, come together to serve in the church, but people volunteer only when they feel plugged in. If something causes them to feel put off for long enough, some run, some leave, some press through. I guess that is why the diamond analogy works so well. Huge amounts of pressure in the ground makes the diamond form, but it also takes skilled people to find it, refine it and make it shine.


If you’re one stepping into a new leadership position, take the time to lead people and bring them along with you in the direction that you want to go. If you find out what they want to do for God and you help them reach that goal, they will bend over backwards to help you reach yours too. It is all about love, and pouring into people. I use these principles in my job as well. It works.


If you’re the one with a new leader, let your speech always be grace seasoned with salt. Give them time. Love them. Help them learn. Be patient. God isn’t finished with them yet.
If you are the leader or the lead, spend the time really talking things out. Share ideas. Pray for each other. Pray with each other. And in all cases remember that we are all trying to build a Kingdom, and not just our own castle. We need to impact the world for Jesus. That must be our focus.

Teeth.... and Discipleship.

They help us chew our food, which in turn allows our body to gain strength, build muscle, harden and strengthen bones, be healthy.

If we care for our teeth, we brush them, floss them, be careful not to eat too much junk, our teeth will last. But even if we do all of these things, there can still be problems. That’s where the dentist comes in.

A while back I had a piece of my tooth fall out. For a while I just tried to make it work. I ate on one side. I kept it clean. As time went on it began to hurt. I ignored it for a couple of days. I began to hurt more. I worked up the courage and went to see a dentist. I SO did not want to see a dentist. I SO did not want to see the dentist. Dentists do things that hurt. I was afraid. No wait… I was terrified.

He was good. He went in, froze the tooth, did some cleaning and put in a temporary filling. That was uncomfortable. He said we would wait and see what would happen. If there was pain, I was to go back in and they would do a root canal… There they were…. A heart-stopping couple of words…. Root Canal. He emphasized … “It’s expensive.” I was gripped with fear. I was sure I was going to have to endure the procedure.

Once the temp filling was in, I noticed every twinge of pain. I was sure that it was going to be the root canal. I found myself able to tolerate a little pain to avoid going back. Besides, how was I going to pay for the procedure? As a way of paying came up, I called and asked the price. $1000. Good thing I have dental coverage.

I booked the appointment and braced for the worst. I was convinced that I had a root canal on the way. I was telling everyone that. When I sat in the chair the endontist did some spelunking around in my tooth and said that he was just going to fill it. Phew! Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t easy. The dentist was good though. Very gentle. Consoling. Sympathetic. I had one of those epiphany moments.

I was in the chair because of how I had neglected my teeth over the years where my dental coverage was sporadic. It was sort of how some people live their Christian life. They coast. They went to the altar once when they were young, but never allowed it to change how they lived their life in a moral and spiritual sense. Often those are the kids of “Christians” that drift away for a while and indulge in stuff that they know is wrong. Some people even end up in a very dark place because of their choices. Sometimes it takes God going in like a dentist and fixing the damage. We have to make the appointment, and it may still hurt, but in the end God allows it to make us stronger. We may have to give some things up that caused the damage. We may have to get ourselves back into a cycle of maintenance of our faith. That is why the Bible says to examine yourself daily to see if you are in the faith. It says to be faithful with the little things. It says to think of the things that are excellent or praiseworthy.

Discipleship takes discipline. Work at your faith daily.

9/11 and the Truth...

With 9/11 having come and gone for another year, I have been watching a lot of the specials on TV where people sit and debate as to what actually happened on the day. Most of us just seem to think that it was just as we saw. A group of terrorists hijacked some planes and ran them into the Twin Towers in New York City. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed just outside of Virginia. All the evidence and witnesses seem to point in this direction as well. Several higher institutions have done examinations of the events with the blueprints of the buildings and specs of the panes involved, and what happened as we saw it on that day (and in my humble opinion) seems to be very plausible.

Most of what the “truthers” (I don’t get to see why they get to have truth attached to their name) seem to do is argue from lack of evidence. They tend to be George W. Bush haters. They use all kinds of argumentative fallacies. Just in general, they are really disrespectful of the fact that people lost loved ones in the attacks of 9/11. There are always groups of them yelling and harassing people at the memorial ceremonies.

The best of the theories that just had me stunned that they actually considered this was that all of the three planes that hit the buildings were replaced by empty planes at some point during the flight, while the real planes landed at a secret airbase. All of the people that were on those flights were put on Flight 93 which was eventually shot down by the US government. An NO ONE HAS SAID ANYTHING IN ALL OF THIS TIME.

Piece by piece, these people had demonstrations and explanations of the science and all the data was shown to them and each time it was like the covered their eyes and said, “I just don’t see how that could have happened.”

Arguing from lack of evidence… They say something like, “There was no video taped record of such and such, and so it must have not happened the way we think it did.” They set themselves up a false dichotomy. They try to make it seem like there are only two possible explanations for the way something happened. When often there are several, and some of them are even plausible.

I have seen these people argue a slippery slope as well. They go from pointing out a small detail to the position that the whole government is corrupt and obviously out to get us in the blink of an eye. I guess it just reveals their real intent. They hate George W. He could have made the whole world be at peace, and all wars stop and they would still hate him.

Ok, so now, why all of this? I thought about how these people seemed to want to hear nothing that could discredit their view of what they believe happened on 9/11. Is that how I am with my faith? I believe some things that many people find strange. Is what I believe based on the evidence? Or is it based on my emotions? Or is it based on some hatred? These were tough questions for me to look at. I really had to examine myself. I have spent many years looking into the reliability of the Bible. I do not want to believe something that is not true. Even though there is still a lot of evidence, there is still an aspect of faith. As one preacher puts it, “Even if we were there, we would have to take Mary’s word at the virgin birth.” There seems to be a strong amount of evidence to support what the Bible teaches.

I guess the biggest difference for me is that I do let my faith get tested. I have held up what I believe against ideas that oppose the Bible. I let the Bible filter it through and see what is left on the other side. If the Bible is not true, then there will be nothing left. If it is true, it will stand in the end. That is one of the claims from within its pages. People have scrutinized the Bible for centuries and the people have come and gone. The Bible has lasted. People’s lives have been changed. Even when people try to rewrite it (ie: The DaVinci Code, The Last Temptation of Christ), the Bible stands. When people claim that God is dead, and they die, the Bible still stands.

My one concern is that I always test everything that is being said to me. The Bible has stood in my life to this point.